Читать книгу Criminology For Dummies - Steven Briggs - Страница 31

After police make an arrest, a prosecutor must determine whether or not to file criminal charges. (At the local level, a prosecutor is usually known as an assistant district attorney or county prosecutor. At the federal level, prosecutors are called assistant U.S. attorneys.) After reading a police officer’s report, if a prosecutor decides to file charges, he drafts a charging document, sometimes called an information or an indictment, which lists all the criminal charges against the defendant.

At the arraignment, the defendant hears the charges against him and has the chance to apply for a court-appointed attorney. (Most defendants can’t afford to hire their own lawyers.) Thereafter, the prosecutor and the defense attorney engage in plea negotiations. The vast majority of criminal cases are resolved by negotiations and don’t go to trial. But if the lawyers can’t agree, they do go to trial, where a jury decides whether or not the defendant is guilty. (A defendant can choose to waive his right to a jury and let a judge decide the case.) I discuss the responsibilities of prosecutors, defense attorneys, and judges in Chapter 19, and I walk you through all the steps of a typical criminal trial in Chapter 20.